he barefoot man helped by a kind cop in New York City is not actually homeless.

Last week, we told you about the heartwarming story of an NYPD officer giving a homeless and barefoot man a pair of winter boots.

The story seemed almost too good to be true. And, according to one report, that is in fact the case.

The New York Daily News reported on Monday that the barefoot man in question, Jeffrey Hillman, is not actually homeless. Instead, he has an apartment in the Bronx thanks to disability benefits and vouchers.

The article also notes that Jeffrey Hillman has repeatedly turned down assistance from local agencies.

"Officer [Lawrence] DePrimo's kindness and generosity complemented an array of housing and support services provided by the city over the past several years," said Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeless Services.

Jeffrey Hillman reportedly resided in transitional housing from 2009 to late 2011 before getting his current home through the Department of Veteran Affairs. According to the New York Times, Jeffrey Hillman was a food service specialist in the Army for five years.

The Times also reported last week that the barefoot man who is not homeless was back on the streets a few days later. Once again, Hillman was barefoot, telling reporters that he had hidden the shoes so they would not be stolen.

However, Jeffrey Hillman made sure to thank the NYPD Officer DiPrimo for the random act of kindness.

"I appreciate what the officer did, don't get me wrong," he said. "I wish there were more people like him in the world."

"I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing," Hillman continued. "I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. It meant a lot to me.

Walking in the morning towards the platform in a subway in Madrid, Spain, I used to drop a coin in the cup of a middle aged gypsy woman with several barefoot and half-naked children. I was in high school then, but I still remember feeling awful for her. Then, one day, she was in a loud argument with another gypsy and that is how I found out that she was “renting” the children. Apparently she was late paying and the other woman was “repossessing” the children!! I never gave her another penny. She was still there when I graduated, so she must have been making a living!

6
posted on 12/05/2012 8:38:20 AM PST
by Former Fetus
(Saved by grace through faith)

Another of the growing army of “disabled” on Social Security disability. We all hear talk of senior citizen retirees when we discuss SS reform. But the biggest problem is lazy guys like this. Grifters.

7
posted on 12/05/2012 8:42:58 AM PST
by DesertRhino
(I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)

I’m surprised the cop was that naive, but I guess it’s because he’s a rookie. He’s got a good heart but he was scammed plain and simple. I grew up, still live in NYC (unfortunately) these bums pull these kind of scams all the time, especially on tourists which no doubt is what he was aiming for.

Did it not seem strange to this cop why this dude was sitting in front of a shoe store with his bare feet sticking way out into the sidewalk? And in Times square? Come onnn. And now he’s doing it again. He sees it works, so he will do it again and again and again and sell the shoes to some tourist for $10 bucks which is what he probably did 10 minutes after the cop bought him those shoes.

That whole area in Times square is just one huge cesspool of scammers and thieves. I walked through there last year and did a test, I had an old wallet I was going to throw out, but instead I put it in my back pocket and let it stick out bit and walked from 7th ave and 42nd st heading north. Before I even got two blocks I thought I felt something, so I reached around and guess what? The wallet was gone! *What* a surprise!

8
posted on 12/05/2012 8:47:29 AM PST
by GrandJediMasterYoda
(Someday our schools we will teach the difference between "lose" and "loose")

I had a liberal woman in my car one day. She was scrambling in her purse for money to give to one of those bums on the street corner with the sign.
I told her, “hey, don’t do that, you’ll teach him to associate people with food”.
A fed bear is a dead bear.
I thought she would pop a critical vessel. lol

9
posted on 12/05/2012 8:47:59 AM PST
by DesertRhino
(I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)

I used to give money to panhandlers from time to time.No more.Never,ever,ever will I do it again.I might be inclined to help in other ways...for example,I might help a “homeless vet” to get to a VA facility where he/she would,very hopefully,get help.I might even offer someone a job around my house.Anyone familiar with AA or NA knows that they say that the *last* thing you should do with an alcoholic or addict is give them booze,drugs or money.

However,what that cop did was,in fact,a very decent thing even though it may have been inadvisable...even if the guy was,in fact,homeless.

I worked for 20 years in the ER of a major hospital of a large,Northeastern city.In winter alcoholics/addicts/schizophrenics used to come in all the time wanting "medical clearance" to go to a detox/psych facility.They'd almost invariably sign themselves out of the facility at the first hint of better weather and,voila!,we'd see them at the next cold snap...."I wanna go to detox".

12
posted on 12/05/2012 8:54:14 AM PST
by Gay State Conservative
(Benghazi: What Did Baraq Know And When Did He Know It?)

Whole group of “exit ramp” panhandlers around here, some with military clothing (and one with a para helmet). This one had a sign “vietnam vet”. He was at most 35 years old.

A while back in GA they rounded up a Dickens like gang of panhandlers-— tracking the “homeless” from their spot at the end of the day to a mall parking lot where they met a Mercedes, and leader was caught taking his percentage of each daily. Real nice.

Don’t give cash to anyone on the street, sign or not. More often than not it is a scam.

I saw Charles Barkley, on TV, tell about the time that Michael Jordan stopped him from giving money to a beggar. Michael said "if he is capable of asking for money, then he is capable of saying would you like fries with that?"

I lived in NYC for a couple of years. The number of scammers is mind-numbing. My favorite is the “belt scam.” It goes like this...

You come out of the subway station. A confused man in a suit comes up to you and asks what street he is on. He explains that he got off at the wrong subway stop and that he has an interview in 20 minutes uptown. UNFORTUNATELY, he has left his wallet at home and now doesn’t have the requisite fare to get uptown for the job interview. He’s out of work and desperately needs the job.

“Tell you what - I’ll sell you my belt for $2! It’s really nice, worth way more than $2. That will get me subway fare!”

At this point, most suckers just feel sorry for the desperate guy and give him the $2. He disappears down the subway stairs and you gone on your way thinking you may have helped someone get a job.

If you agree to buy the belt, he’ll start to take it off, but then balk, claiming he’ll look ridiculous in the interview without a belt. He then says he’s just going to try running, but thanks anyway. (He’s hoping that you’ll have the money out already and will just hand it to him.) He’ll then run off.

BUT...

Come back two hours later. The same guy will be there scamming different people for $2 dollars. Again and again. The total dialogue only takes about 2 minutes, so - if he’s good - he can do this 30 times an hour. Most of the time, he’s successful because people want to help the nicely dressed, out-of-work businessman who is just desperate to get to his job interview.

A friend om mine actually works at a welfare's and tries to help people get a place to live.The city he works in is known for extremely expensive apartments. The shocking thing is that people actually say no to apartments even though they are perfectly fine. They complain about minor issues that its not completely in the center of the city, or to small or not nice enough. These are people that have been homeless for quite some time living in shelters,even with families.And while they say no the government still has to keep providing them temporary housing.

He wasn’t a beggar, he was a Con Man. Chances are good that there was also a pickpocket working the crowd. What if instead of asking you for $2, he asked you for $50 billion to stimulate the economy? It’s just a bigger con.

27
posted on 12/05/2012 9:50:08 AM PST
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

The leaders of the Democrat party are all con men. They tell everyone they’re for the poor while they’re rich? The Clinton’s came to D.C. writing off their dirty underwear. Yes, they wrote a couple books, but they have loads of money now. They are Shills in The Big Democrat Con Game.

28
posted on 12/05/2012 9:55:29 AM PST
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

You want to know why Bruce Sprinsteen supports Obama? It’s because they’re both con men. When you buy a Springsteen CD for $15, what do you get? A nickels worth of plastic and papr and a good feeling. He knows it’s a con. Same with Robert Redford....he’s a con man and not just in that movie. You pay $10 to see one of his movies, and what do you have? You rent a seat for a couple of hours and you have an emotional feeling. It’s a con. And Redford knows it. That’s why he’s such a liberal Democrat. They like con men.

29
posted on 12/05/2012 10:00:56 AM PST
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

Amazing story. Wouldn’t you think such a fellow would have it together enough to hold down a job?

I got taken several years ago in front of the grocery store where I would do my weekly shopping. As I was on my way in, there was a guy talking on the pay phone that was on the outside wall of the place. In a very animated fashion he was telling the person at the other end about his predicament.

As I approached he share his problem with me. He was out of gas and wanted to know if I could spare a dollar. Normally, I just tell such people “no”, but it was Christmas time and it was cold outside. I had my doubts, but I gave him $5.

Sure enough, when I came out of the store, about one hour later, there he was pretending to be on the phone still, and, not even remembering the woman who gave him a fiver, asked me again for money.

I put it in my back pocket and let it stick out bit and walked from 7th ave and 42nd st heading north. Before I even got two blocks I thought I felt something, so I reached around and guess what? The wallet was gone!

Maybe it fell out.

In any case it's not clear that the pickpocket situation in Times Square is worse than it was over 50 years ago: link (2 pages)

New York has millions of people. Some of them are pickpockets. What is the first place any of them are going to think about when they are looking for large crowds of people, some of whom will be naive tourists?

I didn’t read a word of this story or watch the video when it originally came out.

Because I knew it was BS.

America is awash in a sea of discarded/extra shoes/boots/socks.

It is literally impossible to go without shoes here. One time some fellow employees found a pair of boots in the work dumpster...brand new Timberlands...I wore them for work boots for 2 years until they fell apart. Looking back they were probably murder boots that had been tossed but I wasn’t going to let perfectly good boots in my size go to waste. And I’ve never been a hobo.

And even if that weren’t true...if used foot wear still had value in America, and we didn’t have literally billions of pairs of unwanted shoes...then I might believe a hobo was sitting around in the cold city shoeless.

The story stank from the beginning. My sympathy is with the officer for getting taken. Hopefully it causes him to think about what being “homeless” in America really means, and how manipulative the vast majority are.

As an aside...I once got into an argument with a hobo that always begs at a local intersection.

Hobo: You don’t know how hard it is to live in the woods.
Me, from the window of my work truck, begrimed from a day’s labor: You don’t know how hard it is to get up every morning and go to work.

That hobo refuses to look at me anymore...and I’m pretty sure him and the three other hobos that share that spot have a trailer in a trashy little trailer park about a half mile from their begging spot.

As I re-read this wall of text I realize it comes across as me disliking hobos. And that’s exactly right...I have no respect for beggars. I used to live in a city that has a high percentage of panhandlers...they’d come up and ask for money, I’d tell them I’d give them a quarter if they told me a joke, or did a little dance. I guess they were all too dignified to do so because I never had a single taker.

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